


Double or Nothing

by RurouniHime



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bucky Is Not Helping, Cockblocked by Fate, Established Relationship, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Hotel Sex, M/M, Sequel, Steve Feels, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Unresolved Sexual Tension, War Veteran Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 02:03:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12877833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RurouniHime/pseuds/RurouniHime
Summary: One of these days, they're actually going to get that sleepover.Steve's patient, Tony's determined, and Bucky is... wait, what's the opposite of helping? (otherwise known as the sex-filled sequel to Place Your Bets)





	1. Steve

**Author's Note:**

  * For [myrafur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrafur/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Place Your Bets](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7215922) by [RurouniHime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RurouniHime/pseuds/RurouniHime). 



> Oh Myyyyyraaaaaa... 
> 
> >_>
> 
> Now, I know Myra wanted sex in Place Your Bets. Everyone else, if you didn't want sex in Place Your Bets, back button is your bestest friend. If you _did_ want sex, scroll wheel wants to date you.
> 
> Also, fair warning: There is mention of an utterly ignored cheesesteak sandwich.

“Oh,” Steve says into his phone. He’s in his nice trousers, shirt, and tie, still warm from the iron. “No, that’s fine. I know you’re busy. Don’t worry about—”

“You have got to be kidding me.” Bucky yanks the phone out of his hand and puts it to his ear. “Again? Seriously, Stark, you’re supposed to be a genius, you’d better find a way to get this boy laid already or I’ll—”

 _“So.”_ Steve snatches his phone back and shoves Bucky into the kitchen where he came from. He hurries into the bedroom and wedges the door shut with a shoe. Not a second too soon: Bucky’s muffled ‘oof’ sounds just atop the thump. Steve thumps back and gets cursed at for his trouble. “Like I was saying, don’t worry about it.”

“I’m so, so sorry, Steve.” Tony sounds exhausted. Worse, he sounds genuinely upset, like he’s letting Steve down. “Again. Jeez, _again_ again, what is this, the third time?”

Fourth, but Steve’s not saying a word. And it really is fine. “It really is fine. Not like I haven’t seen you all week or anything.” He lets his soppy smile leak into his words; anything to help Tony loosen up. Thank god Bucky’s locked out.

“A fact I am extremely happy about.” Sure enough, Steve can hear the smile. He can also hear the sigh. “Gotta say, I’m loving the lunches. But they’re just not...”

“Yeah.” Steve is appalled at himself. Before Tony, he went years without sex. Years. And he didn’t care. Then in a whirlwind of a week, he meets this oddball not-exactly-a-prostitute billionaire and now he can’t even manage five days? He sits down on the bed and loosens his tie, wondering when it suddenly got so warm. “Silver lining: Buck’s entertained.”

“That was always my goal. What’s that noise?”

“What noise?”

“Sliding. It’s just the kind of sound that a, wait, do you have a tie on?”

“No.” He doesn’t, not anymore. He tosses it away from him in a hurry. “Nope. I don’t even own a tie.” Also true; this one’s Sam’s.

But he shouldn’t have underestimated Tony. “You got dressed up,” Tony accuses. “You put on a tie for me and I’m standing you up for a plastics CEO. Plastics, Steve. This is the worst thing I’ve ever done, what else are you wearing?”

“Pants,” Steve says.

“Color?”

“Uh, gray?” Steve looks down at himself. Are they about to have phone sex? He’s never had phone sex. “White shirt with cufflinks. I have some socks on. Shoes.”

“And he’s wearing cufflinks,” Tony mutters. “I’m an asshole.”

“You’re not an asshole. You’re just busy.”

“Three new contracts and five days of meetings? The universe is conspiring to keep us clothed and in public until I do my penance for pretending to hook you, do you know how long I’ve been waiting to get my hands on your—” Tony cuts himself off, but Steve figures it’s about as long as he’s been waiting for Tony to get his hands on his whatever as well.

He had been looking forward to dinner, though. Steve never gets to go to restaurants with names like the ones Tony throws down like they’re fast food joints. At first he was afraid of the hoity toity balsamic vinaigrette vibe, but it became clear pretty quickly that Tony has about as much interest in pea-sized fillets as he has in the claims about his enormous, ahem, _assets_ in every volume of the Star. The man can eat. Which is good, because Steve can really eat, and he hates feeling like he’s a garbage disposal in front of other people. Sam says he shouldn’t feel like that, but as much as he tries not to, sometimes he still does.

The place they had planned on tonight was a total dive, about the size of a Coleman cooler, and was supposed to have the best steak sandwiches in Manhattan.

Tony sighs, sounding frustrated. “You’re going to think I don’t want to be with you—”

“I can count twelve times this week that we’ve been together,” Steve blurts, and feels his eyes grow wide. Did that sound like he’s keeping track? Never mind that he is.

Tony pauses, clears his throat. “Well. That’s—”

“You’ve been together _twelve times?”_ Bucky shouts through the door. “Jeez, you’ve been holding out on me, Steve, how much sex are you actually having?”

A dull thumping sounds from under the bedroom floor. Steve buries his face in his hand and sends a silent apology to Mrs. Martinez. “Buck, shut _up.”_

Steve could count the times Bucky listens to him on his thumb. “Seriously, Steve, details. Details are key. I am not getting any lately, so if you are, then I need to know about it. My rights as your best friend and roommate—”

“I am having zero sex!” Steve shouts through the door. “None. Zilch. Nada. Absolutely no sex has been had by me.”

The flat goes quiet. He can hear Bucky breathing beyond the door. Strangely, Tony’s breathing seems to have gone silent.

“You know what, screw plastics.” The phone goes dead.

“Tony?” Steve shakes the phone. It has no effect, as expected. “Okay.”

He stands up, puts his hands on his hips and looks around, then sighs and opens the door.

Bucky is lounging there in his sweats, grinning, his hair pulled back into half a ponytail. “You’re getting some tonight,” he drawls, and clamps his tongue between his teeth.

Steve clocks him with a pillow.

**

Should he throw out the flowers? He should throw out the flowers. Tony isn’t a flowers guy. Actually, Steve has no idea, which is the heart of the problem. He knows Tony, of course he does, but there’s this part of Steve that just cannot get over the fact that Tony Stark is richer than god. Steve’s not richer than anyone, except maybe Buck. 

Flowers had looked nice, felt natural; Steve, wanting to bring _something_ to show his appreciation for the sheer amount of money Tony is spending on him tonight, jumped off the bus early to go grab some at a street vendor’s; he didn’t think much about the meagreness of it until now, standing outside the double doors to an obscenely expensive hotel suite, relieved as hell that he’s dressed to the nines because the concierge probably wouldn’t have let him in otherwise, ignoring his growling stomach and fumbling his phone out so he can recheck the text Tony sent him. He probably messed up the room number, and now he’s just knocked on some stranger’s door and will have to explain to interrupted honeymooners or something why he’s bothering them with a bouquet of lilies and daisies, and—

_Room 5006, 8:00pm. Skip dinner, I’ll order in._

“Okay.” Right room at least, so that’s—

The doors open on Tony, in most of a suit that makes Steve’s tongue dry right to the roof of his mouth. The jacket’s missing and a white tie is looped over Tony’s nape, but the shirt is crisp and black, the pants a sinful ash gray with dark accents, and the cuffs still done up.

“Oh, honey! You shouldn’t have.” He takes the flowers from Steve and ushers him in, then sets them lovingly on the table directly across from the doors, against an ornate mirror. Steve studies his reflection. Even without Tony’s jacket, Steve’s best suit looks disgracefully plebeian side by side. He fidgets from foot to foot, but then Tony whirls and walks into his space, running both hands from Steve’s shoulders down to his wrists. His eyes go a lot farther down and linger a lot longer, and his fingers pause to worry Steve’s cufflinks. Tony ends it all with a soft huff through his nose. 

“Well, _hello,_ stranger.”

Steve can’t help but preen. It’s so rare he gets to do this.

Tony’s hands brush back up to his biceps, where his fingers tighten. He cocks his head. “I Seamlessed three kinds of sandwich and a bucket of loaded fries. Also a house salad from room service. Mostly so I don’t have to lie to Pepper.”

Steve crosses his heart. “Secret’s safe with me.”

“No doubt in my mind.” Tony leans up and pecks Steve on the mouth, but it turns into a much bigger deal when Steve slants into it, and tilts his head, and he probably shouldn’t do this because the smell of cheesesteak is just tormenting his nose right now, but Tony’s right here. _Right_ here, and Steve hasn’t done this in days.

Tony tastes like coming home. Steve’s not poetic as a rule—he’s pretty cheesy when he tries, or so says Harley and sometimes even Sister Agatha, and of course Buck, but Steve stopped believing his schtick ages ago—but this, this kiss and this heat and this tiny, contented little sound Tony hums between them… They feel like coming home after a hard day out in the cold and peeling off your layers and stretching your arms up above your head as far as they’ll go. Steve’s heart begins to pound, working warmth into his limbs, and the center of him starts to thrum.

“God, finally,” Tony manages on the only breath he allows himself. He tips his jaw up, plunging the kiss to a whole new level of dirty.

Suddenly Steve’s not hungry, at all. He’s fine. He could go all night. He _might_ go all night, actually. It makes him giddy and kind of crazy; he can’t remember the last time he was bursting with this kind of energy or this much satisfaction. Had to have been before he shipped out, because afterward—yeah, he doesn’t need to think about afterward, not tonight. He can set it aside and take this time for himself. Sam always says it’ll be there when he’s ready to come looking for it again.

“Not hungry,” he murmurs, sliding a hand around to the small of Tony’s back. “You hungry?”

Tony smirks and bumps their noses. “Really hungry. Starving. We should definitely not do what you’re about to—”

He loves kissing Tony. Tony leans into him, warm and wiry, filling Steve’s nose with the spicy undercurrent of cologne and aftershave. Steve drags both hands through Tony’s hair, marveling at the softness and the heat at Tony’s scalp. He finds the tie without thinking about it, slides it free and winds it around his hand. Tony’s fingers climb to the collar of his shirt, as deft with Steve’s tie and buttons as he is with life in general, but Tony uses Steve’s tie to loop him closer, kiss him deeper.

“You smell really good,” he says against Steve’s mouth, talking his way down his chin. “Really good. Best ever, I should bottle this.

“Joke’s on you,” Steve gasps as Tony nibbles at his throat. “Calvin Klein already did.”

“Sneaky. I’ll buy them out.” He presses open lips to the bend at Steve’s shoulder and sucks.

Steve holds Tony’s head there, imagines holding his head to something else, and rocks his hips a little desperately. Tony’s hands trip down to his backside and palm him, sliding up and down.

“Ooh, loud and clear.” He wheels Steve away from the wall and backs him across the room until Steve hits a bed nearly half his height and tumbles down onto a plush expanse of white sheets. Tony turned the bed down. Steve moans and arches up, seeking more weight, more heat. Tony pauses, then gives it to him with a laugh, pressing down atop Steve’s body, kissing him senseless. He finishes with Steve’s shirt buttons and Steve rises up, trying to shrug it off and chase the kiss at the same time.

And then things kind of stop.

~tbc~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, 'cause I'm just that mean.
> 
> BUT THERE IS AN END TO THE MADNESS. In one to two days, the second part goes up!


	2. Tony

“So,” Tony says.

From his back, all spread out across the bed’s thick comforter with his shirt halfway off his shoulder and Tony’s bite marks pinking his throat like beautiful patchwork, Steve blinks up at him. “So?” His hands, still on Tony’s chest, smooth tentatively at his lapels.

God, why does he have to look so fantastically perfect? Tony can’t function. His brain is making boop boop beep noises.

It has literally been decades since this last happened. _Decades._ Tony’d damn well forgotten about it till now, and yes, he’s forty-mumble years old, but he’s never had any trouble worth its salt in this area. Never felt inadequate, never been nervy about shaking his thang. But now Steve Rogers, quite possibly the most perfect man on earth, is in his arms and half naked and Tony is absolutely vibrating, he wants to make this so good for him, but he’s _choking_ and Steve, Steve who now knows all about Tony’s ironclad reputation in bed, is going to suffer through the novice fumbling and squirming and whatever stupid noises occur, and then just keep blinking at him and wonder what the hell everyone keeps writing filthy op eds about. “I might, uh. Be having performance anxiety.”

“Oh,” Steve says after a second. He hitches up on both elbows, his brow screwing into a frown. Between the open folds of his shirt, his stomach tenses up. “Oh, that’s. Okay?”

Tony kneads his forehead but Steve goes on.

“Is it me or, or something I—”

 _“No.”_ That is important, and Tony gets that out just fine, lunging forward and taking Steve’s face in both hands. “God, no. Steve, no, you are doing everything...” He sweeps up and down Steve’s body and gets lightheaded again. “Absolutely everything right. I mean, look at me.” He’s the hardest he’s been in weeks and that’s saying something, considering that every time he and Steve have had to cancel, Tony got acquainted with his blue, blue balls all over again. That’s the kind of problem he’s used to having, not this deep-seated terror that if he touches Steve again, everything’s going to go all wrong.

Steve looks relieved. “Yes, you don’t… look like you’re having trouble.”

How to explain? “I’m not. Not physically. I’m just a little invested in this? Like maybe unhealthily. Yeah, definitely unhealthily. Doesn’t need to be a big thing, though. You’ve done it. I’ve done it. Just two guys who have done it, doing it together. It’s fine.”

Steve’s expression bends slowly into a smile. He plays with the edge of Tony’s shirt, then bypasses it and trails his fingertips down Tony’s chest. It’s almost _shy._ Where in god’s name did this man come from?

“Look.” Tony catches Steve’s hand right as it reaches the edge of his scar. “You, um, you can’t do that.”

“Sorry.” Steve snatches his hand away, turning red. “Sorry, you’re right. I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“Assume away,” Tony corrects in a hurry, and flails after Steve’s hand. “No, you can touch me. Of course you can touch me, I love touching. I’m glad you want to. Over the moon, really, scars like mine can get a little hinky for some people.” Steve’s eyes narrow and Tony clears his throat. “Not that I care if people have problems with it. I’m me, complete package. Don’t like, don’t buy.” 

Okay, probably not the best choice of words, considering the ill-advised history of their little twitterpation, but whatever. 

Steve’s frown is back. “If they don’t want to see who you really are, they don’t deserve your attention.” 

He looks like a teddy bear on the verge of beating someone up. Somehow. Tony presses Steve’s palm to his chest, right over the scar. “Seriously, Steve, I’d never have made it past high school if I cared what they think of me. But…” And here it gets hard to look Steve in the eye, but damn it, he’s going to do it. “I do care what _you_ think.”

Steve opens his mouth, but Tony holds up a hand. “Yeah, irrational. My middle name. I just, I may have built my pedestal too high? For myself. Not you. No pedestal for you, you’re clearly not a pedestal guy. Anyway, semantics; I’m nice to look at, but you, you’re basically a Greek god, except really blond. Which the Greeks weren’t always. A Norse god?”

“Not really comfortable being a god,” Steve puts in.

“Right, forget I said it. I’m nervous. I mean, you, you’re young, and I’m not as young and I swear I don’t have any problems in that department but I think that tonight I might have psyched myself out a little because I’m not really a perfectionist, but this, I want this here to be perfect for—”

Steve surges up and kisses him, slipping his tongue between Tony’s lips. Tony sinks down onto him, like a balloon deflating, until all there is is Steve’s exquisite, glorious mouth. His hips lift gently, rocking against Tony’s, luring him into an irresistible rhythm.

“I think,” Steve murmurs, “you should stop talking and make love to me.”

“See, that right there is kind of the issue,” Tony breathes against Steve’s mouth. “You say things like that and I… mm… I might be a little—what was I saying?”

“Don’t know,” Steve mumbles between kisses. His hands work button after button free down Tony’s shirt, then slide inside and trail warm and decisive over Tony’s ribs, across his hips, up his spine. “God, take this off.”

Tony does immediately, without worrying _at all._ Amazing what the right incentive can do. “You don’t like my duds?”

“I do.” It’s practically a whine. “Can’t decide whether—” A heady, sucking kiss. “I like them more on you or…” Another kiss. “Or coming off you.”

“I know what _I_ want,” Tony says, a centimeter from Steve’s lips. Steve cranes up, but Tony pulls just out of reach, sliding his hands down to Steve’s belt. It’s the work of a moment to loosen the buckle, open his pants. He delves inside, pressing his thumbs into the hollows of Steve’s hips and relishing it when his whole body tenses. “You and I are really going to go places, kid.”

Seeing Steve twitching, pupils blown, starting up with sweat on his chest, the pro in Tony finally takes over. He kisses Steve, easing down, nudging into the hot cradle of Steve’s pelvis. Steve’s definitely hard: he groans when Tony’s full weight presses against him, arching very slightly.

It's hard not to make a joke, _What can I get you_ s and _On the house_ s popping to mind, but Tony’s really trying here. He doesn’t want to fall into routine habits, charm his way through, make this trite. He’s afraid to open his mouth considering what might come out. He pays attention to the gooseflesh climbing Steve’s skin in spite of the heat, the way the muscles at his sides twitch when Tony sweeps a thumb across his nipple, the suck of air through his teeth when Tony replaces thumb with mouth.

They wrestle Steve’s trousers off, then Tony’s, a brief sideline into the pockets to get the supplies they’ll need, and then Steve’s panting, lying back and tugging Tony with him, hands half pulling, half hovering. A chuckle builds from Tony’s chest; he kisses Steve, deep and dirty, and finds his words at last. “Come on, Rogers,” he whispers in Steve’s ear. _“Be forward.”_

Steve does yank him down then; after that, it’s a heady muddle of tongues and skin and whispered _come on—again—there—yeah._ Tony feels like the crazy kid he once was, finding his way through sex with another kid just as antsy and desperate as him, only there’s no rush to the finish this time, just two bodies wrapping around each other again and again, searching for the best possible sensations.

“Tell me what you want.” Tony lips at Steve’s chin, kisses his throat. He backs off to get a better view, settling his weight back on Steve’s thighs, watchful for clues given by his body.

“I think…” Steve exhales in a whoosh and runs his hands aimlessly down Tony’s bare front, his eyes skipping everywhere. “I don’t… I don’t _know.”_

“Hm.” Tony takes Steve’s hand, guides two fingers into his mouth, and sucks them slowly back out again. “We can just keep fooling around.”

Steve shakes. Tony slides up, leading at the hips, until he’s astride Steve’s pelvis, hovering just above him. He can feel Steve fighting the urge to thrust up, bring their bodies together. Instead, Tony teases Steve’s cock up against his belly, stroking idly. Steve’s whole frame quickens, waking up even further. “God, yes,” Tony breathes. “Don’t hide _anything_ from me, I want to see it all.”

“Okay,” Steve manages, sounded bewildered. Ye gods, has he found someone who is actually an honest to god open book? The more Tony thinks about it, the truer it feels: Steve never holds back, never lies in anything he does. Not even, apparently, sex. Doesn’t even know the meaning of what Tony’s asking of him.

He leans down, slow, and cajoles Steve into a kiss that blankets them in toe-curling heat. It works as a fine distraction, for a time. Steve’s hands sweep up his back, then drift down, clutching lower over Tony’s ass, and when his fingers meet Tony’s back there, he drags in a breath and goes utterly still.

Tony smirks, sits back and finishes preparing himself under Steve’s watchful eye. Steve is no shrinking violet about it either: he shuffles up onto his elbows, cranes to see what Tony’s doing. Tony’s been watched before with his fingers up his own ass, but _this_ … Steve’s gaze is hot and shadowed, cheeks pinking further with each second. He’s hard as a rock, his erection lifted behind Tony now against his back. His nostrils flare when Tony finishes, and he sits up fully, jostling Tony to press his nose to Tony’s sternum and inhale. And then it’s Tony’s turn to lose a little breath as Steve’s lips trail deliberately down the length of his scar.

“At ease, soldier,” he admonishes in a shaky voice, and presses Steve back down to the bed. He unearths the condom packet from beneath his knee and tears it open. With a wink, he rolls it down Steve’s dick. Steve is big, this part as lovely and arresting as the rest of him. “Just until we get ourselves figured out.”

In answer, Steve pushes up, the hard length of him skating Tony’s tailbone. His hands clench once on either side of Tony’s hips.

Lube again, and then Tony’s sliding slowly down, anchoring himself inch by inch, and… there are a lot of inches. Tony opens his mouth silently. He rocks back, forward, flexes his hips, and finally seats himself to a drawn-out groan from below him.

Oh, he wants that sound again. He squeezes, just a little, shifts forward and back, exploratory movements until Steve breaks, another rumble vibrating through his chest. His hands clamp onto the sides of Tony’s thighs, fingertips leaving white points on his skin.

When he tries to move again, Steve holds him in place.

“Wait, wait a minute.” Barely words. Sweat beads on Steve’s forehead, gathers over his upper lip. Tony ignores him and leans down to lick it off, only to have Steve moan and catch his lips in a swamping kiss, licking urgently into his mouth. Tony rocks forward, unable to help it, and Steve meets his rhythm almost as though they’d planned it: _perfect_ strokes, roll, thrust, recede, all over again. It’s instinctive to clench: Tony does, and Steve falls back with a rattle of a gasp, arching into him, sending darkness crawling around the rim of Tony’s vision. He leans back until the ceiling swings into view, fumbles behind him until he can draw Steve’s knees up. 

Oh god, he’s going to come, and quickly. The heat is _unbearable,_ assaulting his face and chest, inescapable on the backs of his thighs where they press to Steve’s hips, razing trails in the wake of Steve’s hands. There’s no time to question, to analyze and adjust: Steve sets a blazing pace, stomach clenching, hips circling, hitching Tony forward with each arch and roll. Tony leans forward to change the angle, then watches in awe as Steve’s mouth drops open, as he sags back, as his rhythm loses all strategy and he just… _moves._

“Tony. Tony.” Again and again, clipped by gasps. Steve’s body heaves; the base of Tony’s spine begins to tighten, the back of his thighs and the core of his belly. He staves it off for as long as he can, bites his lip, clenches again and again, and Steve shouts and surges up, shuddering into climax.

It’s more than enough to send Tony over. He whites out, thrusts without restraint while it runs him down and flattens him, and whines some kind of broken sound—Steve’s name.

Oh god. Oh _god,_ that was… yeah, no words for that. Shiver after shiver takes him. He comes down gradually, aware in increments of Steve’s tortured gasps beneath him, and drops onto his arms either side of Steve’s head. Feels it as Steve slides out of him.

“Sorry for any misplaced hype,” Tony exhales. His elbows are going to abandon him, drop him right down on top of Steve which, incidentally, is a very nice place to be, a place Tony most certainly wants to return to. But it isn’t what he wants to _do_ with this afterglow. There should be meaning to it, not just a collapsed engineering expert.

Except that Steve grabs him and pulls him down, meeting him halfway in a kiss that’s both loose and hungry. Steve smells amazing, sweat and cologne and sex all whirling into this taunt of a sensory experience. “Not enough hype in the world to do that justice,” Steve gasps into the kiss, and, well, Tony’s only human.

Steve’s quite a bit younger than him after all. A bit quicker turnaround. Tony strips off the condom, then works Steve with his hand, brings him over the course of the next ten minutes to squirming, then arching—a string of chesty, guttural moans—then coming all over again, Steve’s body thrusting up into his hip, slick and overheated and, dear Lord, utterly magnificent. 

“Please stay naked for the entire night,” Tony slurs sloppily into the side of Steve’s face, relishing the hisses as he drags Steve’s climax to its absolute limit. Steve’s hips shudder and buck twice more, and then he slumps like an empty sack into the mattress, his hand clamping down over Tony’s wrist, his chest flushed and heaving.

His breathing is loud, whistling, not graceful at all. Tony loves it.

“Oh god.” Steve licks his lips. His eyes have squeezed shut, his expression bent into a borderline rictus. “Don’t move your hand.”

“You sure?”

“Not an inch.” The torment gradually bleeds from his expression; Steve gives a huge sigh that seems to fill his entire body. Tony feels the world’s luckiest fool, lounging there holding Steve’s heavy dick. Steve swipes a damp palm over his face and blinks up at Tony. “Son of a gun.”

“Why, thank you.”

Steve fumbles a grip around Tony’s nape and tugs him down, but there’s no hurry in it: just a half-formed kiss that goes on and on, until Tony has pretty much forgotten his own name. It breaks when he realizes his thighs are kind of aching and settles down along Steve’s side with a heartfelt groan.

**

Once he notices it, Steve spends a long time looking out the window.

It’s nice view. There’s a glass door in the adjoining room, slightly open and leading onto a private wraparound balcony—they’ll get to that later—but this one’s a wide picture window looking out over the heart of Manhattan. Tony would never have pegged Steve as the type of guy to wander around in the altogether. Figured he’d get up (he did), stretch (he did), then pull on trousers and maybe walk around with them unbuttoned or something delightful like that.

He didn’t. Instead, Steve went straight to the window without a stitch on him and opened the blinds just far enough to bask in all the city’s twinkling glory. Tony amuses himself by basking in Steve’s bare backside, which has a glory all its own.

“I don’t know how you ever leave this room,” Steve says, thumbing the drapes. He inhales deeply, then lets it out. “City’s gorgeous from up here.”

“It is that.” He resists the compulsion to get up and find his way back to Steve’s side. It’s usually the other way around: Tony can’t get far enough away from his partners right afterward, wanting his space back, even with the ones that he sincerely cared for. With Steve, even the short distance between bed and window is too much. Tony clears his throat, unable to keep from at least one indulgence. “But the view from here’s pretty swell, too.”

Steve drops his head forward, hiding a smile. He gives the tableau of glittering buildings and pulsing avenues one last look, then turns and comes back to bed. Tony scoots over to let him climb in, trying to judge a proper distance for after the stellar sex they’ve had, but Steve slides back into his space, wrapping his arms around Tony’s waist and laying his head in the crook of Tony’s shoulder.

“Hi,” Tony murmurs, tugging Steve even closer. He’s cool now, their shared heat lost to the room, but he smells like Tony. Hints of his aftershave overlie the scents of Steve’s sweat. Tony can’t think of a better combination.

Steve plays his fingers over Tony’s chest, grazing the thin curls of hair. “You know, part of me was convinced I was going to screw this up. That you’d come to your senses and realize you had better things to be spending your time on than a kid from Brooklyn.”

Tony stares at him for a good five seconds. “You know that’s ridiculous, right?” Hoarser than he’d like; his tone is far too serious, even a little intimidating.

But Steve just shrugs and gives him a sunny smile. “I’m told I have a bad habit of being maudlin.”

“You, my friend,” he says, walking his fingers up Steve’s chin, nose and forehead, “are the best thing that’s happened to me in years.” He buries his hand in Steve’s hair, enjoying the cloying damp, the heat. “And we’ve already established that I don’t deserve you.”

“Challenge accepted,” Steve says after a few seconds’ silence.

“Challenge?”

Steve lifts his shoulders again. “I have all night to work on that misunderstanding,” he says simply, and pecks Tony’s mouth.

“I...” Tony says when he can.

“Am a beautiful, worthwhile person, repeat after me.” But Steve’s lips touch his mouth again and again, and make this very hard. “I am a beautiful—”

“I am a beautiful.”

“—person, and I am just what Steve Rogers wants right now—”

“Mmm, I’m, wait, just what you want?”

“—no matter what I might tell myself in my head, out of self-consciousness or regret or—”

“Guilt,” Tony mutters into the kiss, “it’s definitely guilt.”

“Then don’t feel guilty,” Steve decrees, settling firmly atop Tony and curling an arm under his back to hook his shoulder. He looks Tony right in the eye. “Mind over matter, Tony. Because I swear I don’t blame you for anything.”

“Well, that’s good. _I_ blame me. Do you know how lucky I am that you even looked at me again?”

“You’re overstating things.”

“Steve. I lied to you for days. About crucial stuff. I’m not overstating things.”

Steve peers at him then, dipping his head until they are almost uncomfortably nose to nose. Tony goes a little cross-eyed. “Are you worried I’ve convinced myself I’m okay with it?”

“I...” Yes, that’s it. Right on the nose. Steve really is a wonder. “Yes, I am.”

“Well, mister,” Steve says, rocking his hips with intent and causing Tony to suck in a soft breath. “Let me tell you something about myself that you don’t know yet. I don’t convince myself of anything anymore. I don’t settle. Not after... Iraq.” His eyes drop to Tony’s sternum. He shakes his head lazily back and forth. “And it’s a good way to live, okay, all this being blunt with yourself, not playing hide and seek with—”

“Hide and seek?” Tony chuckles.

“—with what you really _want,_ Tony. It’s better to look yourself in the face and argue all the second thoughts out, see if they really have any traction, especially when someone else’s emotions are part of the package, because I did that before. Tried to ‘make it work.’ Unless you’re really lucky, and probably not in a war, it doesn’t.”

Tony gets that. He rubs the scar over his heart, and he gets it. 

“And say what you will,” Steve carries on, “but I wasn’t the only one with feelings that could get hurt in this situation, and I wouldn’t pretend to forgive you if I didn’t—”

Tony kisses him, hard, rolls his hips and slides his hands all the way down over Steve’s backside, relishing the shivers he leaves in his wake. “Okay, okay. Loud and clear. I believe you.”

“And I believe you,” Steve says, slightly breathless but without missing a beat. “You made a mistake. You fixed it. No harm, no foul.” Tony opens his mouth, but Steve’s eyebrow shoots up and quells any noise he was planning to make. _“No harm,_ Tony. Got it?”

“No lasting harm,” Tony corrects, and knows he hits an old bruise when Steve sighs.

“No lasting harm, then.”

For a few minutes, they lie there with fingers tangled, listening to the sounds of the streets through the open balcony door. Tony lifts their hands and waves them in a wide circle. “Regrets?”

“Nope.” Steve pops his ‘p’.

“Huh. Nothing for the suggestion box?”

“Well, I could eat.” 

Tony looks around half-heartedly for the sandwiches. Eh, they’re way over there. “Besides that. Because if anything’s been lacking, I have an extensive repertoire of party tricks.”

“You really want to know what I regret?”

“Absolutely.”

Steve purses his lips grimly. “The worst part about the whole thing is that I could have had _this—”_ He sweeps a hand out to take in the entire suite: the messy bed, the vast window, the attached rooms, the glowing city. “The very first night. How’s that for regret?”

“I think I can offer a straightforward resolution for you, my friend,” Tony says, pulling him in until Steve’s bangs brush soft and sweaty against his forehead.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Oh, yeah,” Tony whispers, and draws him back down.

~fin~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus finish-eth ye olde sexy times. ^_^ Thank you all for reading!


End file.
